


The Confidence Scam

by rainer76



Category: Fringe
Genre: AU, M/M, Virgin (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:29:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/rainer76
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thank you, for treating me like a human being, I haven't been getting much of that lately." - Peter Bishop<br/>(Wallflower - 4:07)</p><p>AU from episodes 4:08 to 4:09</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Confidence Scam

_  
_

 

 

Lincoln spends the first hour testing the mettle of his cuffs, twisting his wrists aimlessly inside the restraints, not in hope of release but to kill the boredom.  Storage closets, it would appear, are the same in any reality.  There’s a broom stacked in one corner, cleaning products, a mop and a bucket.  He has lifetimes worth of toilet paper - so small comfort there - and the air has the stale taste of ammonia and bleach.  By the second hour, he has counted exactly two pairs of feet who have paraded past his doorway.  The corridor is used, if not frequently.  He has the option of calling out if Big-Shot Detective doesn’t return in a timely fashion.  Peter –-

In truth, Lincoln has no idea what happened to the man.  He feels no remorse for the conspiracy; Olivia was right; it was their best chance to uncover the Secretary’s plans; and if they compromised Peter’s chance to go home in the process, well; Lincoln won’t lose any sleep over it.  One man’s desire to leave didn’t outweigh _their_ needs. It might be easier though, if he knew for certain what had transpired. 

Idle thoughts keep him occupied. 

Images of rotting in a maintenance closet for all eternity are swapped out for thoughts of Peter being hunted down and shot, which give way to the trepidation of Olivia confronting Broyles alone, informing the colonel of their attempt at espionage.  The possible repercussions to the peace accord, the _disappointment_ Broyles would voice, all make Lincoln visibly ill until the images swap out again, and he’s back to rotting in a maintenance closet for all eternity _._  

By the third hour Lincoln’s given up on standing and dropped to his buttocks on the floor.  He sits Indian style with his ankles criss-crossed around the pole, his upper body propped against the line of cold steel.  His stomach rumbles as he flexes his wrists, the wait worse than any interrogation he imagined.  By the fourth hour, unlikely as it is, the chaos of his thoughts slow, the righteous anger that’s sustained him guttering under exhaustion.  He counts the cracks in the plaster wall until he begins to drift off. 

His visions are a mishmash: Olivia’s lips, of sweet breath in his ear, the unspoken encouragement as she watched him step through the portal – ( _you know what to do._   Fingers carding through his hair).

Robert standing in the doorway, socks pulled up his hairy calves and shirttails covering his boxers.

He dreams of a secret room with a thousand inlaid plans, gilded in blood and gold, phasing out of existence, of old fashioned clocks with the inner workings laid bare – ( _you look good._   The intonation honest, the look appreciative).  The strange flutter in his stomach, as he stood quiet for both their scrutiny. 

He dreams of the scratchy glide of material against his palm. 

Of his own knuckles brushing blood-warm skin. 

Of fisting a hand in Peter’s collar to keep him close, to jerk him forward (and Lincoln’s not sorry, they’re both playing their parts).   

He dreams of the moment Bishop turned his back and sprinted, scaling the brick wall and vanishing, leaving Lincoln to act asdecoy.  Peter’s so-called ‘way’ was to drop Lincoln, his highly recognisable face, like so much excess baggage _._   He dreams of a gunshot…

The door to the maintenance room crashes open.

Lincoln, half asleep, almost brains himself against the metal pipe in surprise.  The sudden light is harsh against the memory of darkness.  He squints, eyes tearing up involuntarily, a sour taste in his mouth.  It’s not his double and it’s not Olivia’s double either.  He feels his muscles coil.  Tension rocks Lincoln forward until he gathers his legs beneath him.  “What’s going on?”

“Taking you topside.”  The agent is nondescript, face round, his eyes a muddy brown.  “Secretary’s orders.”

Lincoln goes cold.  He eyes the broom in the corner, measures the distance, the likelihood of success.  He’s not up for a repeat performance of the last time he was taken into custody by a complete stranger.  He never thought he’d be so desperate to see his own face.

“Quote end quote: Peter said to relax.” The agent says shrewdly.  He’s hanging back, the key to the cuffs in plain sight, and Lincoln’s not sure if the wariness is reserved for _him_ , or what he imagines Captain Lee would do under similar circumstances. 

“Peter?” Lincoln says, grasping onto the name.  “He’s here?”

“The tall guy shadowing the Secretary?  Yeah.  He’s here,” the agent shifts his weight impatiently.  “You’re not going to go six rounds with me in a broom closet, are you?”

“No.” Lincoln holds his wrists out.  “Where’s Captain Lee and Agent Dunham?”

“En route with the suspect.”  The agent is lax with his information, talking cheerfully as he unlocks the cuffs.  He stands back, eyes raking down Lincoln’s body from tip to toe in a move that’s becoming increasingly common.  “Weird,” he says blandly, then escorts Lincoln from the maintenance room.

Engaging with Peter Bishop over the nature of loss, Lincoln realises, is a pissing contest he has no hope of winning.  Lincoln’s good with people, his demeanour unassuming, non-threatening.  He’s talented at seeing the inner mechanics, recognising the cogs and spindles, the clockwork of human emotion - anger, love, greed – each distinct emotion passing by like the second-hand past the hour. 

Peter’s anger, flaring up sudden, squaring off against _Lincoln,_ is almost a relief.  The man’s been freakishly in control since he arrived, and as far as Lincoln can discern, hasn’t let his emotions slip once.  _You’re scared_ , Lincoln says, aiming to shame, thinking the charge of cowardice might get Peter to do what _he_ wants.  He’s utterly stumped when Peter says _yes_ , and then basically, fuck you too.

The air’s crisp with a tension Lincoln can’t begin to resolve, with small acts of betrayal on both sides. Peter’s not, in fact, a coward; he knows Bishop stepped into a machine under the expectation he wouldn’t step out again.  He’s seen Peter walk into a time anomaly after seeing a fellow agent disintegrated, face interrogation, suspicion, guns, step across universes, leave Lincoln behind...and he keeps coming back to that, probing at it like a sore tooth, surprised at the fresh hurt.

The internal five year old wants to know why it was so easy for Peter to leave him to an enemy they knew was compromised. 

The FBI agent, a little older, jaded, realises Peter’s plan was on the mark.  Convincing Olivia and Lincoln’s double to do their dirty work was the cleanest, safest way to uncover the threat.

Lincoln never apologised for having his own agenda.  He supposes it’s too much to ask Peter to apologise for his own.  But it’s sobering, in its own way.  Lincoln doesn’t have a clue how to manipulate him.  And it’s sobering, because there’s something warier, harder, in Peter’s stance.  The second Peter knew for certain Lincoln had used him for his own devises, Peter had used him right back, _ruthlessly_ (decoy, the five year old sing-songs internally, _decoy_ ).  He thinks about the glasses Bishop brought, left behind in another reality, folded up neatly and boxed away in favour of contacts.

There’s three inches of space between them now, standing toe to toe, and Lincoln’s floundering for a way to convince the other man they need to stay. 

Peter doesn’t fight for causes, his moral compass points in the opposite spectrum to both Olivia Dunham and himself, the only thing he holds close is the people he cares about, and none of them exist in this reality.  The glasses had fit Lincoln perfectly; the prescription one hundred per cent correct, Lincoln’s stomach twists internally, his thoughts keyed up as if he’s missed something big. 

As it turns out, Lincoln doesn’t need to find a way to convince Peter to stay.  A man named David Robert Jones does it for him.

 

***

 

 

“No hard feelings?” Peter asks. 

There’s dust all over his clothing, the walkie tucked inside his ballistic vest.  Lincoln’s service weapon dangles from his fingertips, the grip presented butt forward, the clip spent.  The Jian She Type-05 rests across Peter’s back; muzzle to the earth, the tactical strap running diagonally across his chest.  It was signed out to Agent Kipper before Peter snatched it from the ground. 

Lincoln accepts his back-up service weapon with one hand, and holds out the other for the sub-machine gun, too, snapping his fingers until Peter hands it over.  “How come you never ask Olivia for a gun?”

Peter seems startled, eyes raking over Lincoln’s face as if searching for nuances.  He relaxes, mouth twitching.  “Because Olivia wouldn’t hand over a weapon to an unregistered holder.  _Especially_ not her own gun.”

Lincoln opens his mouth then shuts it.  Quickly. 

If he blinks owlishly it’s because the dust has found its way behind his glasses, and Peter’s expression is sliding toward amusement.  Lincoln takes them off, not thinking about _why_ he handed over his weapon so readily, and rubs at the corner of his eye. 

The surrounding scene is chaotic.  Kipper is dead.  Broyles SUV, the one Olivia commandeered, is destroyed and their own ride has its windscreen shot out, the side panels riddled with bullets.  There’s dust in the back of Lincoln’s throat, the quality of light saturated as if they’re standing in a desert rather than the basin of a quarry.

Nadine Park, or the shape shifter that took her form, lies on top of a plastic wrap. 

Lincoln finds himself staring - the delicate bones of her wrist to the frail beauty of her face, the dark bullet hole in her chest – until his eyes drift toward her mouth.  The froth resembles curdled milk, staining her chin, the sweet bow of her bottom lip.  “Self-destruct mechanism.  Or maybe a pill,” Peter mutters, following his line of sight.  “We ought to get her back to the lab, see if we can recover any data.”

The data’s already fried, Lincoln suspects, but nods any way.  He breathes in until the dust tickles the back of his throat and shakes the last of the tension from his shoulders.  He’s been awake almost as long as Bishop, but he can’t manage the same calculated distance when it comes to the shifters - that thousand-yard stare Lincoln associates with soldiers - which Peter has in spades, right now.   

Bishop squats, snapping medical gloves on before searching through her pockets.  He bags each item efficiently, pausing over the cell phone to thumb through the numbers listed.

Parker is ‘life-like’, too perfect even in death, and he thinks there should be some kind of expression on Peter’s face.

Lincoln had crossed to the other side because he wanted to kill the shape shifters, stop whoever was responsible for Robert’s death, but his hatred is packed down with determination and above all else, passion.  Peter’s more of an agent, more of a killer, than some of the professionals Lincoln’s worked with, and he’s not sure why the knowledge gives him pause.

He feels like he’s hovering over an icy crevice, a slippery chasm straight into the unknown.

She had been pretty, Lincoln thinks abstractly, and thinks Peter had warned them all in a brightly lit cell, _I've managed to decrypt a couple shape shifters myself,_ so casually said. 

No one had asked the means, and Lincoln wonders briefly, if anyone had ever bothered to in the other timeline either.  He bends down to zipper up the body bag when Peter’s finished. 

“I’ll get the transport organised but there will be a debrief with Walternate and the others first.” 

Broyles and Olivia are in the distance, standing beside the bisected SUV.  A small knot of team-members categorise the portal technology Jones left behind in his haste, and overhead, a chopper flits across the horizon like an overgrown mosquito, black and monstrous.  The whoop-whoop of its blades echoing off the quarry walls.

“You should leave the shape shifter to Dr. Bishop.” Lincoln stresses, making sure the other man knows it’s not a request.  Peter meets his stare calmly, the humour leaking away to something watchful.  _Removed._  

“Thanks for the gun.”

 

***

It’s the distance, Lincoln decides, that he doesn’t like.

 

***

 

Lincoln sits in the debrief opposite his double, listening to a man that twenty-four hours earlier he felt certain was the enemy.  Walternate and Peter are the only ones present without a double, and there’s enough tension in the room to initiate a world war. 

The debrief stretches out into four hours, gives birth to multiple coffees, occasional insults, and a sporadic burst of pacing by numerous agents before they dismiss themselves and stumble out.  Olivia leaves after cornering Peter in the corridor, her features animated, her hands cutting through the air as she searches for a room; wanting to get on the Jones case, and get on the case _right now_.  Lincoln stays long enough to see Peter knock her back gently, crying sleep as an excuse, and resigns himself to another night of paperwork.  He finds the glasses in the top drawer of his bureau desk and tries them on surreptitiously.  The frame is narrow, drawing attention to his face, the cut of his cheekbones, his eyes somehow brighter in the reflection. 

His vision is perfect.

 

***

 

“So the glasses - was that an overture of friendship or a threat?”

Peter stares at him blurrily.  “You have a key to my house?”

“Unofficially you’re under home arrest, so easy access at all times.”  Lincoln pockets said key, which in truth he took from Tim, and takes a seat on the ottoman.  Peter’s sprawled on the couch, dressed in tracksuit pants and multiple t-shirts, his feet bare.  The stubble is dark on his face, his clothing rumpled and soft, smelling like sleep. 

“You couldn’t pretend to be civil and _knock_?”

“You hacked my personnel and medical files, you made sure I knew about it.  One demonstration of power for another.”

Peter thumps his head against the armrest.  There’s a bottle on the floor beside him, tipped onto its side, the contents empty.

“Lincoln, it’s two-thirty in the morning.  The only Machiavellian in the family line-up is my father.  The glasses were a gift.”

“An oddly intimate gift.”

“Well, chocolates wouldn’t cut it.”

Lincoln props his elbows against his knees and leans forward, bright-eyed, interested.  He can smell the alcohol on the other man, his body pliant, all of his bristles, sharp points, dulled. “Are you drunk?” he asks, a little incredulously.

“Walter left an hour ago.  I haven’t slept in days, and suddenly my house has been invaded by the Ambiguous-gift police.”

“And you’re stuck.”  Lincoln deduces slowly.

“He didn’t look hopeful,” Peter allows.  “Walternate, I mean.  He has the genius without the mad quota, somehow, I think I need the insane element to get me home.”  Peter cranes his neck, throat bared and pale blue under the streetlights distant glow.  His eyes are blown wide, he says earnestly.  “You should really knock next time, it’s only polite.”

“Did you read my entire file?”

“Yeah.”

“Then not a chance.” 

He doesn’t imagine the smile.  Lincoln’s fingers curl against his thigh, rub against denim.  He remembers wool, the damp heat of Peter’s neck against his knuckles, the handcuffs pulling his shoulders taut, the line of collar-bone laid bare.  He remembers purposefully waiting until the other man was firmly restrained, within earshot of a security guard, before revealing what he planned.

_I don’t believe this._

Peter was already ‘caught’, cuffed, knee deep in the dual roles they were playing with no way to stop Lincoln other than talk him out of it.  It had seemed like the safest time to confess.  But then the doppelgangers arrived and none of it mattered anyway.

Lincoln picks up the empty bottle and recaps it slowly, placing it on the coffee table.  The conversation he wanted to have is impossible when Peter’s three sheets to the wind. 

Lincoln never imagined him drunk, but he’s been surprised often enough in the last week that the emotion is beginning to feel annoyingly familiar.  He hopes, wryly, Peter remembers the encounter in the morning and stands up, preparing to leave.  __

Bishop rolls onto his side, head buried against the cushions, and murmurs indistinctly into the fabric.  “I take it you didn’t like the glasses?”

 

***

“How’s the head?” Lincoln asks tartly the next morning. 

Peter stares at him mutinously before he goes back to deciphering the machine.  He winces every time Walter slams a beacon down or calls across the lab to Astrid.

They work another case, solving it easily. 

The next time Lincoln walks to his bureau desk, the glasses on his tabletop have a butterfly frame instead.  _Less ambiguous?_ Asks a note, the penmanship slanting to the left.  Lincoln stares at the hideous rainbow colours, the tiny butterfly motifs.  Peter smirks from across the room. "Malicious prick," Lincoln mutters under his breath, and works to keep his face straight.

He lets himself inside Peter’s house the same day, using the bureau key, without knocking - pizza boxes under one arm, case files under another - and greets the other man with a casual “Hey,” before claiming the kitchen table for his own.  Peter drifts away from the machine’s schematics, grabs two beers from the fridge, and joins him. 

“I thought the new glasses highlighted your svelte frame,” he says mock seriously.

“I have a license to shoot things, and technically, you don’t exist here, so where’s the crime?”

“Ouch.” Peter grins, and helps himself to a slice of pizza.  The shimmer in his eyes, a mirage thrown up by distance, isn’t as noticeable.  He slouches in his seat, picks the mushrooms off one at a time and chats amiably.  Lincoln listens, not asking for anything in return, savouring the companionship.  He picks up the conversation when the other man dwindles off, tramples over the ground, flattens the terrain, until there’s a semblance of normality beneath them.  Lincoln hadn’t realised how much he was missing it, until he saw the need for it in someone else. 

“Were you trying to seduce her that night?” Peter asks unexpectedly.  “The whole chicken soup routine?”

Lincoln looks at him dangerously.  “Are you offering dating advice?”

“Not if my life depended on it.”

“Good.” 

Lincoln sips his beer, watching the other man over the rim. Peter looks amused, and Lincoln has time to brace himself before he reiterates.  “Chicken soup?” 

Threat of shooting hadn’t worked.  Lincoln thinks longingly of handcuffs and a gag, except the imagery has a foothold in reality (minus the gag), and it’s dangerous to let his thoughts wander.  “Alright Don Juan, how did you get Olivia to notice you?”

Peter grins.  “No idea. I think I just wore her down through time and perseverance.”

She asked me out, Lincoln doesn’t reveal.  He likes Peter boneless, seemingly close.  He doesn’t want to invite the distance Olivia’s name can sometimes invoke, or shut the conversation down, because sometimes he thinks this is all Peter needs, someone to talk to.  “Maybe I just wanted to make sure she was okay.  Chicken soup isn’t my preferred method of seduction.”

“Hope so.”  Peter tilts his head, thumb running over his bottom lip.  “So what method do you prefer?”

Lincoln hesitates.  He lets the silence build until Peter looks at him directly, lets it become weighted, tinged with questions, heavy with speculation. 

“I’m a straight forward guy,” he reveals

Peter blinks, his tone sarcastic.  “I did actually read your file.”

There are not many who see beneath the camouflage, the pressed clothing and styled hair, his ability to blend into the background and appear non-threatening.  It works for him in all the ways it _doesn’t_ work for Captain Lee, a point of divergence, but Lincoln’s never minded being underestimated. A point of commonality with his double, Lincoln suspects, is his preference to go ahead and kiss someone if he likes them, no holds bar. 

It’s an easy slide forward. The chair's perpendicular to the table and Lincoln comes to rest between his thighs.  There’s a residual shine of grease from the pizza, his lips smooth, mouth soft, body temperature running hotter than Lincoln’s, as if there’s a fever running in his bones.  Peter opens his mouth and kisses back, one hand on Lincoln’s face.

He wants to say _I spent seven hours locked in a closet because of you_.  He wants to say he hasn’t been locked in a closet for years.  He wants to say _I’m sorry it wasn’t only friendship that made me agree to cross over_.  He wants to say he doesn’t regret it, arguing with Peter in the control room, delaying their return, digging his heels in until Jones appeared and gave Peter a reason to stay.  He wants to say Peter’s the only one - in every timeline, any reality - without a doppelganger, but Lincoln catches his hazy reflection, the sand-blasted mirage of false perception, and sees himself in the other man, too. 

Closer maybe, than his own twin. 

He wants to say there are other reasons to stay, but most of all, Lincoln doesn’t want to give him time to think.  He grinds downward, uses his body, his bulk, to spread Peter’s legs further, and tangles his hand in short hair, rests his palm against the juncture of thigh and groin, strokes across the stretched material. 

He’s been told he’s bossy in bed, but Lincoln imagines Peter’s not the type to be submissive, (not for anyone, with the exception of Olivia, maybe) and he’s not disappointed. 

Peter stands up like water in reverse, fluid muscle and a hand that catches Lincoln by his collar, dragging him upright. 

No blow-jobs, Lincoln checks off.  He breaks away long enough to shrug his shirt off, letting it fall to the ground.  The cool air prickles his skin, fingers nimble as he hooks a hand in Peter’s belt.  He bites a pale collarbone, soothes his tongue over the exposed pulse-point, rubs against the other man like a cat in heat.  “I want to fuck you,” he says, because Lincoln’s bossy in bed, _read direct_ , and he still remembers the butterfly frames.  If Peter had any notions he wants to rewrite them with a flourish. 

If he wasn’t so direct in bed, _read demanding,_ he might have caught the way Peter hesitated, the tension that vibrated through his frame, before dispersing.  “Yeah?” he says, off-handed, casual, and leads him upstairs.

Peter’s bedroom is out of proportion, smaller at one end.  The ceiling angles down at a slope, the room ending in angled points.  The bed, Lincoln notes, is a double. Peter may have been abstinent since he arrived but he has a healthy libido, and he finds the supplies, the slick, where one would expect.

“You do this often?” Peter asks. 

Lincoln can’t pinpoint the tone in his voice, isn’t inclined to ask.  There’s a lazy heat in his stomach, the forerunner to urgency, and Peter’s question only signifies too much coherency, something Lincoln’s keen to wipe away.  “Often enough.”  It was Peter’s brazen confidence in an alien world that first attracted Lincoln, and he imagines the confidence stretches into a wide array of fields, experiences.  “I’m not a sweet virgin.”  He tries to allay.

Peter’s mouth quirks, the humour off-centre.  “Of course not.”

He trips the other man onto the bed, skin against skin, fingers catching against bone, grazing against muscle, he rolls on top only to be outmanoeuvred, and _I want to fuck you_ somehow translates into getting fucked. 

Lincoln doesn’t mind, he likes the steady pressure of hands against his wrist, of the tantalising way Peter opens him.  Everything is slow, slower, until paradoxically, Lincoln’s taut as a tripwire, ass clenching around the fingers in his body and his throat caught on a whine as Peter licks a stripe down his cock.  He feels like he’s being adjusted slowly, remodelled, until his body runs to tune on a different frequency, perfectly in sync with the other man.  Peter doesn’t rush.  He acts like he’s trying something out for the very first time, all of his concentration brought to bear, taking Lincoln apart and putting him back together again.

He comes before he realises he’s going to.  Fingers insistent against that spark of pleasure inside, a mouth sealed tight against his scrotum, tongue flat against his balls.  Lincoln flushes rose, caught alight, hips arching helplessly.  He catches the edge of teeth and drops his hips obediently, panting as his skin tingles and turns damp, as Peter rubs a circle across his stomach with one palm.  “Good?” he whispers, and he sounds serious, watching Lincoln for reactions.

He’s still trembling through the post-orgasm, hasn’t found his thoughts or even his mind.  Lincoln nods, spreads his legs further, and bites out a groan when Peter enters, glacial slow, stretching Lincoln’s muscles until his cock - half curled against his thigh - twitches frantically.  “S’good,” he slurs in confirmation, and pushes back, trying to seat the other man deeply.

“You going to make me do all the work?” Peter teases quietly, before rolling them both. 

The penetration deepens, the angle changes, and he sees the way Peter bites his own lip, his hips stuttering before Lincoln sits up.  Refractory period means he would prefer to be sleeping, but Lincoln’s not one to ignore a challenge, or leave a partner hanging, and each stroke against his prostate is like a charge of electricity, jolting him with raw sensation, a reminder his body hasn’t yet recovered enough to cope. 

He clenches, uses his thigh muscles to pull upward until they’re joined precariously, and has the pleasure of hearing Peter gasp, of watching his knuckles turn white against the sheets as he rides him down. There’s no words any more, and if Lincoln isn’t about to come twice like a randy sixteen year old, he takes pleasure in the choked off groans, in the shocky surprise in the depth of Peter’s eyes. 

It’s better than good, Lincoln thinks.

 

***

 

When Lincoln returns to his bureau desk the following Friday, the frames on his glasses are, once again, black.  The colour he prefers the most.  The particular style hasn’t changed though and he draws more than one or two comments over the weekend.   He uses his bureau key to drop his stuff into Peter’s house, moving from the motel to the quiet residence instead.

Peter watches as he barges through the door unannounced and says nonchalantly.  “Technically, isn’t this my father’s house and not the FBI's?”

“We could move you back to your cell if you like?”

“Make yourself comfortable,” Peter says charitably.  “Bureau not paying you enough for your own digs?”

“Your rents cheaper.”  And steals a kiss.  It’s easy between them, in a way Lincoln finds both comforting and alarming.  He wonders if it’s so easy Peter will slide out the door without looking back, or if Lincoln’s managed to carve out his own niche, for however long it lasts.  “How’s the hand?”

There are four stitches down the centre of Peter’s palm, bridging the life span, dividing it in two.  A fluke accident in their last case ended with a broken bottle.  Peter was quick enough to protect his face if not his hand, and Lincoln wonders about the protocols of getting him armed on a permanent basis.

“Okay.” Peter shrugs it off, his eyes bright, interested.  “You seeing Julie this weekend?”

"Yeah," Lincoln says awkwardly. He left it too long, too much time has passed since he last saw her, or his godson, and he thinks the encounter will be fraught with questions Lincoln's only begun to find the answers to. “She’s going to ask how I’m going, if I know what I'm doing and I don't... know what I'm doing, that is.”

“Just fake it,” Peter says easily, and Lincoln's known him long enough to know Bishop's humour is directed inward, even if he doesn't know the cause of it.  “It’s what I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a tumbler account, wouldn't know how to contact the appropriate person(s), but this story has its origin with a pecoln site I stumbled across a little while ago. So kudos to them, for inspiring the fic (and keeping me amused) and apologies too, because I stole a bunch of random prompts for fic ideas and bolted with them.
> 
> And - for the usual suspects - is anyone willing to indulge me by writing Olivia/Peter? I have a craving. Or you know, the follow-up scene, where Lincoln catches a clue and realises Peter bluffed his way through first time guy sex, because I'm easy either way

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Fast hands soft touch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/344173) by [monanotlisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monanotlisa/pseuds/monanotlisa)




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